Gaming through single vs dual core processors

[TequilaChaser]

It's a bug with the AMD chips.

ack-ack

but if it was a "bug" on AMD multi core cpu's........... then how come I am able to have full use of my quad core ( all 4 cores )  in my DVD burning and encoding/converting......... and have full use while I am running my AutoCad, or many other software that are able to utilize multi core processors ???  if it was a "bug" I would not be able to do these things, I would only have the same cpu ability I have in Aces High

Aces High is the only piece of software I have on my PC that does not use my AMD cpu to it's full potential of 2 of the 4 cores available.......

not that it really matters, I am still able to max everything out in Aces High full graphics, advanced graphics, hires 2048 textures, 4096 shadows ( using the 8192 shadows I will experiene about a 5 to 8 fps drop at times ) while running 1920 x 1080 screen res at 60 Hz

Thermaltake Level 10 GT Case
Thermaltake TR2 RX 850watt Modular PSU (single rail, 80+)
AMD Phenom II 975  X4 3.6 GHz Quad Core CPU
CORSAIR CAFA70 120mm Dual-Fan CPU Cooler
ASUS M4A89TD PRO/USB3  AMD AM3 Motherboard
16 Gig's of Corsair Vengance 1600 MHz DDR3 Sys. Memory
WD Velociraptor 450Gig HD SATA III 6.0 Gb/s
XFX HD6870 1 Gig  GDDR5  Videocard
Creative SB X-Fi Xtreme Fatality Pro Series PCI Sound Card
ASUS BluRay Burner
LG BluRay Reader / DVD ReWriter
ASUS VE27Q 27" WideScreen HD LCD Monitor


This PC runs Aces High with everything maxed out ( except the shadows are 4096 instead of 8192 ), all I have left to do is install my 128 gig Crucial M4 SSD ( CT128M4SSD2  128 GB SATA III 6.0 Gb/s )...... to make it have nearly the same setup as my Intel i7 PC........

after I do this I doubt I will see any difference at all between this AMD based PC and my ASUS i7-2600K Intel PC that has the exact same components
...(except it has an XFX HD6950 2GB VideoCard , ASUS Xonar PCI Sound Card and a 1.5 TB Hitachi SATA III hard drive, HannsG 27.5" 1900x1200 Monitor ........ to where my AMD has the 450GB Velociraptor, Creative X-Fi PCI soundcard and XFX 6870 1BG VC, ...... )

even without the SSD my AMD 975 seemed to be nearly right there neck-n-neck with the INTEL i7-2600K although the i7 had an SSD ( same as listed above for the OS / boot drive )

playing Aces high, burning Video, mixing Audio, usinf Cad, etc......


TC

[Tigger29]

Tigger, your analogy is close, but missing one bit of data.  There is only one lane to and from the system RAM.  Any time a core needs to read or write to system RAM, all other cores must wait before they can access system RAM.

Like a one lane bridge that can only hold the weight of one car at a time.

The AMD issue is not as big a problem as it used to be.

Yes you're correct.  I thought about that as well but decided to leave it out to keep things as simple as possible.

[dedalos]

but if it was a "bug" on AMD multi core cpu's........... then how come I am able to have full use of my quad core ( all 4 cores )  in my DVD burning and encoding/converting......... and have full use while I am running my AutoCad, or many other software that are able to utilize multi core processors ???  if it was a "bug" I would not be able to do these things, I would only have the same cpu ability I have in Aces High

Aces High is the only piece of software I have on my PC that does not use my AMD cpu to it's full potential.......

not that it really matters, I am still able to max everything out in Aces High full graphics, advanced graphics, hires 2048 textures, 4096 shadows ( using the 8192 shadows I will experiene about a 5 to 8 fps drop at times ) while running 1920 x 1080 screen res at 60 Hz

Thermaltake Level 10 GT Case
Thermaltake TR2 RX 850watt Modular PSU (single rail, 80+)
AMD Phenom II 975  X4 3.6 GHz Quad Core CPU
CORSAIR CAFA70 120mm Dual-Fan CPU Cooler
ASUS M4A89TD PRO/USB3  AMD AM3 Motherboard
16 Gig's of Corsair Vengance 1600 MHz DDR3 Sys. Memory
WD Velociraptor 450Gig HD SATA III 6.0 Gb/s
XFX HD6870 1 Gig  GDDR5  Videocard
Creative SB X-Fi Xtreme Fatality Pro Series PCI Sound Card
ASUS BluRay Burner
LG BluRay Reader / DVD ReWriter
ASUS VE27Q 27" WideScreen HD LCD Monitor


This PC runs Aces High with everything maxed out ( except the shadows are 4096 instead of 8192 ), all I have left to do is install my 128 gig Crucial M4 SSD ( CT128M4SSD2  128 GB SATA III 6.0 Gb/s )...... to make it have nearly the same setup as my Intel i7 PC........

after I do this I doubt I will see any difference at all between this AMD based PC and my ASUS i7-2600K Intel PC that has the exact same components
...(except it has an XFX HD6950 2GB VideoCard , ASUS Xonar PCI Sound Card and a 1.5 TB Hitachi SATA III hard drive, HannsG 27.5" 1900x1200 Monitor ........ to where my AMD has the 450GB Velociraptor, Creative X-Fi PCI soundcard and XFX 6870 1BG VC, ...... )

even without the SSD my AMD 975 seemed to be nearly right there neck-n-neck with the INTEL i7-2600K although the i7 had an SSD ( same as listed above for the OS / boot drive )

playing Aces high, burning Video, mixing Audio, usinf Cad, etc......


TC

Ding! I got the part that it is a bug.  I was looking for a little more like what it is and how does it affect the game.  Who knows, maybe it is causing trouble in our computers at work.  Would be useful info.

[Babalonian]

but if it was a "bug" on AMD multi core cpu's........... then how come I am able to have full use of my quad core ( all 4 cores )  in my DVD burning and encoding/converting......... and have full use while I am running my AutoCad, or many other software that are able to utilize multi core processors ???  if it was a "bug" I would not be able to do these things, I would only have the same cpu ability I have in Aces High

Aces High is the only piece of software I have on my PC that does not use my AMD cpu to it's full potential of 2 of the 4 cores available.......

not that it really matters, I am still able to max everything out in Aces High full graphics, advanced graphics, hires 2048 textures, 4096 shadows ( using the 8192 shadows I will experiene about a 5 to 8 fps drop at times ) while running 1920 x 1080 screen res at 60 Hz

Thermaltake Level 10 GT Case
Thermaltake TR2 RX 850watt Modular PSU (single rail, 80+)
AMD Phenom II 975  X4 3.6 GHz Quad Core CPU
CORSAIR CAFA70 120mm Dual-Fan CPU Cooler
ASUS M4A89TD PRO/USB3  AMD AM3 Motherboard
16 Gig's of Corsair Vengance 1600 MHz DDR3 Sys. Memory
WD Velociraptor 450Gig HD SATA III 6.0 Gb/s
XFX HD6870 1 Gig  GDDR5  Videocard
Creative SB X-Fi Xtreme Fatality Pro Series PCI Sound Card
ASUS BluRay Burner
LG BluRay Reader / DVD ReWriter
ASUS VE27Q 27" WideScreen HD LCD Monitor


This PC runs Aces High with everything maxed out ( except the shadows are 4096 instead of 8192 ), all I have left to do is install my 128 gig Crucial M4 SSD ( CT128M4SSD2  128 GB SATA III 6.0 Gb/s )...... to make it have nearly the same setup as my Intel i7 PC........

after I do this I doubt I will see any difference at all between this AMD based PC and my ASUS i7-2600K Intel PC that has the exact same components
...(except it has an XFX HD6950 2GB VideoCard , ASUS Xonar PCI Sound Card and a 1.5 TB Hitachi SATA III hard drive, HannsG 27.5" 1900x1200 Monitor ........ to where my AMD has the 450GB Velociraptor, Creative X-Fi PCI soundcard and XFX 6870 1BG VC, ...... )

even without the SSD my AMD 975 seemed to be nearly right there neck-n-neck with the INTEL i7-2600K although the i7 had an SSD ( same as listed above for the OS / boot drive )

playing Aces high, burning Video, mixing Audio, usinf Cad, etc......


TC

I think your quad core is a _lot_ newer and a few generations down the line from the circa... I wanna say ~'00-'04 AMD duel cores that were the problem child and it took a couple more years for them to push them outa the market (probabley were still around for dirt cheap until they got used up a few years later).  I don't think quad cores have been around for even 5 years yet.... but time does fly.

Edit: And good god TC!  I don't even think _premium_ mother boards supported more than 2-4 gigs of memory at the time when AMD introduced to the market their duel cores.  We're talking about an issue inherent to computers back in the stone age compared to what your working with currently.  ( I'm jealous )

[ABDCWOT]

I have two coconuts

[Skuzzy]

Sigh, I have explained thiss dozens of times.

The 'bug', which AMD fully acknowledges, impacts ANY application which makes use of the high resolution timers AND threading.  There are a handful of applications, I am aware of, which fit this criteria.  Aces High is one of them.

The bug was sufficient enough, AMD provided those companies with workarounds to get around the problem.  It does work-around most of the steppings which have the problem, but it does not work around those implementations which deliberately disable multiple high resolution timer support (laptops working to save power were/are pretty guilty of this one).

I really wish those of you who insist on it not being an AMD problem would stop doing that.  AMD has acknowledged it is a problem and provides code work-arounds for it.  You really think AMD would lie about this?

[dedalos]

Sigh, I have explained thiss dozens of times.

The 'bug', which AMD fully acknowledges, impacts ANY application which makes use of the high resolution timers AND threading.  There are a handful of applications, I am aware of, which fit this criteria.  Aces High is one of them.

The bug was sufficient enough, AMD provided those companies with workarounds to get around the problem.  It does work-around most of the steppings which have the problem, but it does not work around those implementations which deliberately disable multiple high resolution timer support (laptops working to save power were/are pretty guilty of this one).

I really wish those of you who insist on it not being an AMD problem would stop doing that.  AMD has acknowledged it is a problem and provides code work-arounds for it.  You really think AMD would lie about this?

I was just asking what the bug was and what problems it was causing for AH since I did not know about it. 

[Skuzzy]

I was just asking what the bug was and what problems it was causing for AH since I did not know about it.  

Was not neccessarily pointing that at you ded.  It gets frustrating knowing how many man-hours we have put into this issue (knowing it was an AMD problem and having AMD publicly admit they goofed) only to have players blaming us for the problem.

[TequilaChaser]

my apologies for making it look like I was placing blame on Aces High / HTC

I am not, I am fully aware of the incompatibility of Aces High vs AMD Dual or Multi Core cpus

I am fully aware that we originally had to disable one core back in WinXP / 2000 /98 / etc.....

then AMD put out the Optimizer patch file for the workaround....... I have many posts/replies on the subject, helping others with their graphics glitches, freezes, spinning clipboards, etc...

I still do not call it a bug, though....... it is an incompatibility of software/hardware

I posted that Aces High is the only software I experience this problem with ( not having use of multi/dual cores )........ however, I am sure with out a doubt there is probably many other hundreds of software types out there that I would might experience the same problem ......... I just do not have any on my personal PC....

my apologies Skuzzy....

edit: the optimizer patch was not put out for Aces High, specifically..... it was put out for a variety of software titles


TC

[Skuzzy]

It is a hardware issue.  A design choice AMD made, which conflicts with Intel's CPU designs assuring some level of compatibility problems with any software products which make use of multi-threading AND high resolution CPU counters.

[Shuffler]

Now for a cup o java and a donut.

[icepac]

After reading the information on this thread how aces high uses processors..........

Individual core performance is very important.

When searching the internet for processor performance charts, there is a caveat that most I've seen display the sum of every core running.....which gives you the overall performance of the processor package.

For aces high, a more important spec. would be the individual core performance figures......which are rarely shown in a chart.

I usually use these charts to select my processors using the score divided by the amount of processors.....unless a performance review actually shows individual core performance.

It's possible that aces high will run faster on a core I3 2150 or even a  Core™2 Extreme Processor QX9775 than it would on the average coreI7 processor.

That said, the  Intel® Core™2 Extreme Processor QX9775 is immensely expensive because of the specs ..........(12M Cache, 3.20 GHz, 1600 MHz FSB) but it illustrates a point.

Of course, when running integrated graphics, the core I7 has more muscle in that area than earlier processors that outperform it in a core to core comparison.

Price/performance is where it's at and you really have to read between the lines concerning published performance of processors or you could end up with less than you want.

Six weak cores do not compare to two powerful cores in our case.

I threw together a computer for aces high and web browsing to keep my digital audio workstation free from the internet and it cost very little.

I used a phenomII X2 555 black edition for $87 and an asus M4a785-m mother board for $79.

I was planning on adding a discrete video card but the integrated ati HD-4200 plays aces high at 59fps at 1024x768 with only a couple of graphics eye candy turned off and only goes below 59fps when I am on a hill panning a tank turret over the enemy city as it burns.

It is a comparitvely weak video card to most any discrete card but my gameplay is not affected badly by it...........or the fact that my connection is a cell phone (edge....not even 3g) tethered to my computer.

Nobody has complained of me warping!